UShopWeRip- YouOff - The Truth Behind UShopWeShip & Amideast- The conspiracy

First of all, SALUTATION! It has been a while since my last post, apparently.

This post is going to cover 3 main topics:
1) My exam
2) Amideast
3) UshopWeship

So for those of you who did not already know, I took a break from the blogging world to focus on my pending CMA examination at Amideast. The exam was yesterday, it was made up of 100 MCQs, you needed to get at least 50% right in order to take the final part of the exam, 2 essays. The first part of the exam took 3 hours, the last part was 1, for a total of 4.

To those that do MCQs and, like me, tend to forget some parts of certain formulae, here is a nifty trick. For example, in my exam yesterday I had a calculation that involved the following formula:

Labor Efficiency Variance = (Actual Quantity - Standard Quantity) * Standard Price

EV= (AQ - SQ) * SP

Boring, right? A regular snoozeathon, but, we do what we gotta do. So, I did not remember how to calculat SQ, but I knew what SP was, definately, so, I employed the sweet process of elimination, and divided the answers by SP, whatever gave me a whole number, that was the answer! Ingenious, yes, I agree!

So, exam went well, but now onto part 2 of my blog. Amideast.

Amideast is located off the Gulf Road, near Diva's Cafe (take the second right after Divas, and they are the last building on the corner). I had to take my passport along as verification, standard procedure? More like excessive. Now, that is not the thing I want to complain about, forget the fact that the lady comes up to me and says your passport has expired, hello, you want to verify my identity, not ship me off some foreign location!

After signing in, they give you a clipboard with a paragraph that you must write word-for-word and sign, basically stating that you will not copy the questions (in your memory as you cannot take external papers out of the exam session) and distribute them to people. Hilarious, I studied mostly from questions written by other people, past exams etc. its a moot point on their behalf.

Now, I took my papers and headed upstairs to the examination room. First, I was asked to empty my pockets, what did I have? Wallet, keys, ipod, mobile, the usual. Switch off your mobile phone. Check. Take off your watch, wait, what? Its my good luck charm! No, can't go in. Fine. Anything else? No. Turn your pockets inside out, pat your back pockets (I literally slapped my own heinie to her satisfaction), I was like, WTH? Lady, Guantanamo showed more respect than this!

Now, I can live with all that happened above, but what came next really glazed my donuts. I am a compulsive gum-chewer, have been ever since I left highschool, and for the past 8 years, I have probably been Wrigley Extra's best customer. So, naturally, I took a pack in with me. Lady goes no, you cant take that in, no food or drink allowed. So I took out two tablets, popped one in, and pocketed the other. Guess what? She says no, you cant keep it in your pocket. So here is the hypocrisy, I can chew the gum, but I cant take it in, WTH #2.

Whatever!

Now, I am the luckiest son of a gun I know, and I would say that yesterday I put my luck to the limit. After reaching the 30 questions mark, I realised that 1 hour had washed away, and I was panicking, so when a question came up with plenty of numbers, I just lucky guessed it. After the first 3 hours, I was sure I would fail the MCQs, and would not be eligible for the essays. I was surprised to say the least when the essay questions popped up! Now it will take 6 weeks for my results to come in, wish me luck people! Dinner on me for all who wish me well if I pass! And I am a man of my word.

So, rant #3. Bearwith me please, we are almost there:

UshopWeship, or as they should be known henceforth, UshopWeRip (youoff).

what do you think of my primitive editing via paint? :P

To those of you who do not know, UshopWeship is a quaint establishment located in the free-trade-zone that caters to those who wish to purchase goods from abroad, but do not wish to pay the exorbiant shipping fees. So they accomodate you with a PO Box in the States (Doral, Florida to be exact), you use that as your shipping address, the goods are sent there, and once a week they have a courier bring the goods over to Kuwait. Sounds good right, but, every good thing has strings attached unfortunately.

I got an ipod off Amazon. All because Alghanim have a silly policy of sticking the price of things BEFORE discount, hence you are obligated to either carry a calculator, be very good at maths, or speak to a sales agent. Now, I am a glancer, I love to walk in to shops, have a look around, not necessarily to shop, just look around. So I do not wish to waste a sales-agents time with questions if I do not have an intention of buying. Is that so wrong?

Now, for some dumb reason, the retail mentality here in Kuwait is lacking in the small stuff, like for example, armbands, for jogging. I love jogging, I got the ipod specifically to go jogging with, and specifically for the armband, ever since my old mp3 player flew out of my pocket once!

I ordered 3 different brands of bands (say that fast!), coz the one I got initially with my ipod sucked. These things are virtually weightless, and so much so they were shipped in envelopes, not packages! They weighed less than 100 grams, but guess what? According to UshopWeRip's (Policy), packages are calculated at a minimum of 500 grams! No biggie, right? Fine, charge me for 500 grams for 3, no big deal. Nope. They charged me 500 grams, PER ONE! 500 grams = KD2.750 shipping costs. So I shelfed out KD7.250 for items that cost less than a KD each! Not only that, they immediately round all weights up. The bastards.

I called the lady up to rant about it, and she says its standard procedure for all shipping companies. Well if it is, they all suck, and are ripping us off blindly.

C'est La Vie, Non?